Robert Sapolsky summarized the research on stress in his bestseller, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. Why don't they?--because their stress response is used for mobilization, to get them away from perceived threat. The stress response moves body resources into fight or flight mechanisms. Very useful for zebras and for our ancestors running from predators. It is not as useful for us now.

Stress itself is not in itself harmful, unless it comes at the wrong time, is too intense, lasts too long or happens too much. We can see that such things may have contributed to Staff Sargent Robert Bale's shooting rampage.

What is particularly harmful is stress reactivity. Stress reactivity means that you are threat reactive--that you have a low threshold for threat, and perceived threat triggers a stress response. This is not a good use of the stress response.

Sapolsky showed how stress reactivity can destroy health. But I think it can also destroy a society.

The stress response "makes you stupid" because it moves blood flow away from the neocortex and into your muscles, anticipating action.

The stress response also makes you egocentric as your self-preservational instincts take over, lowering your empathy and compassion.

I think we are building a nation of stress reactive people.

How do you build a stress-reactive brain? You probably think of soldiers with PTSD from tours in Iraq or children raised in physically abusive homes. Yes but stress reactivity starts much earlier. I'll mention two aspects.

Mis-care of young children

Babies cannot calm themselves down and, from the beginning of life, must be taught to do so through sensitive care. If caregivers let babies cry too much and too often without comfort, this can lead to stress reactivity in multiple systems. In the last post I pointed out three aspects of self-control that parents and other caregivers influence in the first months and years of life--social self control with mother, vagal tone (related to nearly all body systems) and hippocampal glucorticoid receptor proteins (for control of anxiety).

This is one of the dangers of cry-it-out parenting. It is very hard to change such reactivity later. The sensitive first couple of years of life are when thresholds are being established for brain and body systems.

The data mentioned in the last post call into question the common cultural perception that letting babies cry themselves to sleep represents adequate, or even sensitive, parenting (Gethin & MacGregor, 2009).

When babies are left to cry, with no parental attempt at timely comforting, their brains can be flooded with high levels of potentially neurotoxic stress hormones such as cortisol (Blunt Bugental, Martorell, & Barraza, 2003; Gunnar & Donzella, 2002). Opiods, which promote feelings of well-being, diminish during human sadness (Zubieta et al., 2003), and psychic pain circuits are aroused (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003; Panksepp, 2003).

Epigenetic effects occur (genes are turned on or off and become part of subsequent cell generation). As a result, brain stress response systems can be wired permanently for oversensitivity and overreactivity (Anisman, Zaharia, Meaney, & Merali., 1998), leading to predispositions for clinical depression and anxiety (Barbas et al., 2003; de Kloet, Sibug, Helmerhorst, & Schmidt, 2005; see Watt & Panksepp, 2009, for a review), poor mental and physical health outcomes, and accelerated aging and mortality (for a review, Preston & de Waal, 2002).

Unrelieved distress in early life reduces the expression of GABA genes, leading to anxiety and depression disorders as well as increased use of alcohol for stress relief (Caldji, Francis, Sharma, Plotsky, & Meaney, 2000; Hsu et al., 2003). When emotional dysregulation becomes chronic, it forms the foundation for further psychopathologies (Cole, Michel & Teti, 1994), especially depression.

Infant emotional dysregulation is related to subsequent mental illness, including a propensity for violence (Davidson, Putnam & Larson, 2000). Stress that leads to "insecure attachment" disrupts emotional functioning, compromises social abilities and can promote a permanent bias towards self-preservation (Henry & Wang, 1998; also see Schore, in press, for a review). Children who are not nurtured well in early life tend to be more stress reactive, aggressive and troublesome.

Generally, children are highly reactive to noise in the first five years of life and need to be protected from things that scare them. One trauma during this time can have lasting consequences.

Children are sensitive to different types of scary media at different ages. Joanne Cantor has mapped this out. Grotesque and transforming threatening images scare young children; real-life violence scares elementary school children. Seeing a show at the wrong time can be scarring (ask your friends how many sleep with a light on and when it started-chances are it was when they saw a too-scary movie at the wrong age). See here.

What do stress reactive people do?

Stress reactive people think differently. They are paranoid and suspicious. In the throes of a stress response, vision narrows, action choices are focused on self-protection. Violent action can seem like the right, moral, thing to do.

George Zimmerman is a case in point. He stalked and killed an innocent teenager. Apparently, his anxiety got the better of him.

Stress reactive people often are unaware that their perception is out of line. Their current filters are influenced by their past trauma. They tend to be oppositional-their social skills are undermined by early or later trauma, making hard to get along with others, so instead of cooperating, they blame others for any troubles, whether immigrants, minorities, children, co-workers, strangers, neighbors.

Stress reactive people shrink from civic dialogue. They don't trust others so why get to know them and have conversations and cooperate? Trust and civic engagement have been diminishing for the last 50 years in the USA. (I think our hospital birthing practices have something to do with that too.)

Stress reactive people pass laws like "Stand Your Ground," and concealed weapons laws. They never established a sense of safety in childhood due to poor care, trauma, abuse or neglect. They carry the memory in their bodies and continuously seek safety. But remember, a stress reactive brain does not think or empathize well, so such laws seem "logical.".

Remember, stress reactive people spend a lot of time being "stupid" and egocentric.

How do adults foster stress reactivity in themselves?

Watching Television: Watching television in general makes you think the world is more violent than it is. It makes you think people are less trustworthy than they are. This encourages and maintains stress reactivity. Robert Putnam identified TV as the source of distrust that declined in the populace since WWII. I think it may have as much to do with what we've been doing to babies and children since that time.

Immersion in media (shows,blogs, websites) and activities that emphasize an "us-against-them" mentality: Social stress reactivity is encouraged when you immerse yourself in environments that scapegoat and blame particular groups for your unhappiness.

One of the most dangerous ideas is believing that you or your group are better than other people. This leads to suspiciousness and distancing from 'those people,' making harmful action against them more permissible.

All these things are good ways to tear apart a society.

If we consider self-control as an achievement of development, we might wonder what happened to adulthood. Self-control has a lot to do with controlling negative emotions and stress in social situations. This is best learned as a baby because it's a challenge to learn as an adult.

Dawson, G., Ashman, S.B., & Carver, L.J. (2000). The role of early experience in shaping behavioral and brain development and its implications for social policy. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 695-712.

I see. As far as I'm aware, that's not illegal. If this is true, Zimmerman is not, in a legal sense, guilty of striking first; Martin is. I take it you use the words "guilt" and "innocence" to refer to violations (or not) of your own norms, rather than the law, then; is this true?

For those not aware, the event happened while Zimmerman was performing an orderly security function—neighborhood watch, if I'm not mistaken—so arguably it's right of him to act like a guardian on the lookout for predators, which of course can be confused with a predator looking for prey.

Recall that Zimmerman did not listen to the representative on the phone who told him to stop stalking TM. So in effect he is guilty of provocation. Yes, I use innocent and guilt according common language usage, not legally.

And what of stress-reactivity reactions and already societally-stressed special-needs children? REAL EQUALITY LOOKS LIKE THIS, AND THEN IT DOESN'T - BECAUSE BLOOD OBSCURES THE IMAGE http://www.traumaandlearning.org/ Too busy to care? Too late for you too then, clearly. More blood, more not caring. Had enough yet? ---- ---- ---- Meme's make the world go round and round but this is no time for poetry in the midst of such pain and suffering we must WAKE UP NATIONALLY TO OUR CHILDREN'S CRIES! Enough! - American-congress-of-obstetricians-and-gynecologists-immediately-implement-procedures-and-controls-to-stop-soliciting-circumcision-surgery-from-parents-of-boys-in-most-states-it-is-illegal-to-solicit-medically-unnecessary-surgery?
Melissa Harris-Perry November 8 2015 Sunday: COMPLEX TRAUMA LAWSUIT IN COMPTON CALIFORNIA TO GO NATIONWIDE SOON
- The Behavioral transmission of neurotoxic stress and neurodegeneration means we have a whole new model to work from in regard combating epidemics in our schools and communities - akin to the introduction of sanitary hygiene. The President and Secretary of Education have recently proposed "Safe Haven schools" (safe sanctuaries) in "TRAUMA-AWARE" communities that understand that behaviorally transmitted trauma can reach epidemic levels. PATHOLOGY PRODUCES POVERTY & PATHOLOGY PRECEDES POVERTY - Poverty DOESN'T Precede Pathology! - Poverty DOESN'T Produce Pathology! - One in three children in the US are abused - this is NOT OK, OK?
Is there a link between Childhood CPTSD & Autism?
CIRCUMCISIONS & CLITORECTOMIES? Still? Seriously? What say we as a civilized "CIVIL CULTURE" to infant genital mutilation, male and female? What say YOU? Here is the science, so science-denyers beware, you're mind is about to blow - infants brains cells migrate to and implant in the brains of moms and if you think this is not cool, your own brain is uninvaded, poor you of single-neuronal-population brains - we no longer have mom's with dozens of little alien neuron's in their brains, sadly. Our SELF-MUTILATION and SELF-CPTSD administering is done for ONE clear unambiguous purpose and that is to put us on high-alert - to "activate" us - activating us all, regionally at times, and now globally - in a sense - over the centuries - to what end, positive or negative - seems still an open question - but being decided now many would agree. CPTSD is known to cause changes in the brain and genes, some permanent and some temporary.
To have CPTSD doesn't mean that one is damaged, it means one (ones culture, brain AND genome) is perfectly adapted to a world one doesn't want - one of Paucity and Competition instead of Plenty and Cooperation - both are valid working models - We were as children in a rough world, not masters of our domain as are we now - so now that we have the ability to exercise OUR will in the matter,, what WILL we - PC-minus or PC+plus? - Here's the simple seed of the problem and simple solution: Abuse and social pathology leads to endemic poverty, not vice-versa; endemic poverty does not lead to abuse and social pathology, that is absurd!
Coming from a community exhibiting CPTSD does not mean that one is damaged as much as that one is perfectly adapted to ones environment - adapted to gangs and guns and shootings in Compton, CA; 1 in 3 abused in Broward and SRO's in schools with handcuffs in FL; Lead in the water and blood of children in Flint, Michigan; and Police shootings and impoverished schools in Chicago, ILL..
Making the PUFF-PASTRY of Linked Social Ills Fall: CAUSE FOR EXCITEMENT AND OPTIMISM Mathematical computer scale-free simulation models indicate that reducing the pathogenic contagion of dysfunctional behaviors in a community by as little as 5-15% might potentially bring about a phase change in the system. These models indicate that smaller communities are especially at risk of a runaway cascading chain-reaction occurring if the level of dysfunction rises above a certain critical point. Such a runaway reaction might result in 30-40% or more of a population being affected. This same potential for exponential increase means there is potential to cause an exponential decrease. It is hoped that targeting both direct familial and secondhand social exposure of children and adults to dysfunction and employing a new awareness of behavioral hygiene might cause the self-inflating, self-perpetuating puff-pastry of myriad interlinked dysfunction to fall and decrease as a group this is the Holy Grail of social spending and social service efforts.
It is time we identified affected communities, not just affected persons, neighborhoods, or segments of society. Which cities? Which counties, which states?
We must make our schools into JUSTICE-FREE Safe-Haven SANCTUARIES where kids have a sense of Value, Entitlement and OWNERSHIP towards SCHOOLS:
JUSTICE APPLIED CHILDREN IS IMMORAL!
To make our children FUNDAMENTALLY safe at school means – Error must be seen as an Opportunity to LEARN not as an opportunity to enact Justice upon someone or to have Justice enacted upon one as Punishment or Negative-Consequence.
Talking and Healing Circles are needed, not courts. We need schools modeled on museums and parks not prisons and kids can be given the responsibility by the city to environmentally manage all public lands - When Kids have a sense of OWNERSHIP in their schools then schools will be SAFE in a deep, lasting, and fundamental way. We can protect our children by providing them a K-12 autobiography robotic system to interact with and use weekly and even daily and make use of frequent ANONYMOUS POLLS as well as NOVEL means of dealing with behavioral errors such as H’Opponono Community healing circle practices where the focus is on finding fault in ourselves out of concern for the child sitting at the center of our attention and focused good-will as a family, community, nation and world - Further we WILL and CAN protect our KIDS especially during the amnesic years of zero to six, which is seldom discussed and we WILL do so while providing for MORE personal privacy protections for BOTH child and adult - especially parents - but make NO mistake, 1 in 3 kids criminally-assaulted or dealt-with is NOT OK, OK?
GO TO TRAUMAANDLEARNING.ORG
ANONYMOUS COIN TOSS ALL STUDENTS ABOUT HAPPINESS https://www.youtube.com/playlist…
"BEHAVIORAL TRANSMISSION OF NEUROTOXIC STRESS IN SCHOOLS" ://archive.rcgov.org/lf20031001/LF100103-02.pdf

The blood-battle of good against evil is ongoing and real scientists now confidently argue, although obliquely. Here is what they mean by this -
Start here>

FACT; Culture is biology.

That is to say that we ourselves, our thoughts and beliefs, our society and culture are all biological and our biology seeks a constant homeostasis. The homeostasis we seek as a people is a balance between good and evil in some person's eyes, while others see it as a constant battle between self-interest and group-interests; between cooperation and the expectation of abundance and competition and the expectation of scarcity.

It is this tension between group and self-interests that defines the essence of all social creatures and we are the most social, not the most violent, creature on the planet by far. Indeed, this is no flight of fancy metaphorical deliberation; This tension is embodied in the very real, very physical flesh of each and every one of our brains.

Within the brains of all social creatures there are TWO large groups of neurons that literally compete for BLOOD (and energy) with every single thought, perception and observation we have and make and the neuron-group we side with is the one that wins this blood feud and it that we "hear" internally and act upon in most instances while the loser is what we colloquially term our secondary or "unconsncious" mind.

Paradoxically, the VAST MAJORITY of FIRST-Responders have high personal ACE scores and were raised in high ACE communities and this is ALSO and ESPECIALLY true for those that lead First Responder Organizations and Non-profits that seek to help those most in need. BTU and BAT's - You too live in our High ACE Scoring Complex PTSD suffering community and this means you, me, all of us are affected; so we must FOCUS with all our might to read this and to understand it is a suggestion and request for YOU - BAT's and BTUE to take action on this and place some calls seeking to work with the Library of Congress and Dr. Hayden - Yes, really, you... oh bother, sigh! Wah! The world is mad, completely mad! Sigh! It is NOT just our Superintendent that so deftly does NOTHING with such perfection as the result of having a high personal ACE score and lives in a community (Broward) that is suffering a behaviorally transmitted CPTSD epidemic.

Google these words to learn more "Behavioral transmission of neurodegeneration"

Institutional Complex PTSD and the Potentially Epidemic Behavioral Transmission of Neurotoxic Stress in our Schools and Communities. To make schools into truly Safe Sanctuaries for kids from an overly penal outside world we must make schools into places where ERRORS are seen as OPPORTUNITIES to Learn and to Teach, and NOT as opportunities to to Punish or be Punished. To inflict a punitive JUSTICE Against a Child is a great Injustice and is Immoral just as to train the dog, horse, or child to WAR is IMMORAL. Yup. High rates of Adverse Childhood Experiences in a community leads to Institutional Complex PTSD in many of the organizations and companies serving the most voiceless and powerless in such communities - Leading to the Potential for Epidemics of the Behavioral Transmission of NeuroToxic Stress in Schools and Communities - http://archive.rcgov.org/lf20031001/LF100103-02.pdf